Why can't liberal talk radio succeed?

Talk radio is not news, per se, but mostly opinion. Talk-show radio personalities are not journalists in the classic sense of the word. They are commentators who entertain. If the audience doesn’t like the commentary and the way it’s presented, the show gets canceled.

Rush Limbaugh has a brilliant mind and expresses his opinion in an entertaining way. His vast audience sticks with him because they generally agree with his analysis of the news.

Al Franken is a comedian, not a journalist. He moved from comedy shows to talk radio because his material didn’t appeal to a wide enough audience. But Franken failed as a talk-show host because his material wasn’t interesting, and his arguments weren’t convincing to that audience, either. Other liberal talk-radio hosts may be entertaining, but, apparently, their opinions aren’t convincing.

Opinions are funny things. We seek out those that fit our own core values. We tend to filter out opinions that don’t confirm our core values. It’s similar to the way we choose our friends – because we share common values. The fact liberal talk radio can’t find an audience isn’t because there’s no choice – it’s because there is a choice.

We should form our opinions based on raw information. That’s the difference between talk radio and hard news. Hard news should be based on facts, not conjecture. If a person can find enough raw facts, he can make an informed opinion.

That’s why the Founding Fathers created a free press. So that, given the unvarnished information, citizens can make informed opinions. Talk radio usually attracts listeners after they’ve already formed their opinions. It’s obvious proponents of the Fairness Doctrine believe the average American is too stupid to form a correct opinion in a free marketplace of ideas.

And it’s also apparent they feel the correct opinion is the one they hold. After all, the efforts of the “thought police” to shut down conservative talk radio is all in your best interest. So turn off the radio and leave the thinking to them.

It’s hardly a secret that the majority of the mainstream press has a liberal bias. The only ones who would claim otherwise are the liberals who make up the majority of the mainstream press – and the liberals in Congress who demand a legislative “fix” to correct the “imbalance” in talk radio.

It’s particularly significant that, despite the left-leaning mainstream media, even in cities like New York and Chicago, liberal talk radio still can’t find an audience. The hypocrisy of the left in demanding government control of public opinion, even as it ignores mainstream media’s non-stop liberal propaganda that favors them, is staggering.

Adolf Hitler was appointed chancellor of Germany in 1933 following a free and open democratic election that gave the Nazis a majority in 1932. What followed were gradual steps toward state supremacy, with each step predicated by some kind of managed “crisis.”

The formula used to impose totalitarianism generally follows a three-stage process. It was the creation of the early 19th century German philosopher George Hegel. Called the “Hegelian Dialectic,” it’s divided into three parts: thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

This was a central doctrine used by Karl Marx and his communist disciples. The thesis is applied when a government wants to implement a policy that faces widespread popular opposition. To accomplish this – the antithesis – the government uses the media to invent a problem or crisis that drives the people to embrace the unpopular policy as the only solution to the crisis.

The synthesis is that the population will be more afraid of the crisis than the solution they did not want. They are then manipulated to demand the policy changes they previously opposed.

A classic example of Hegel’s dialectic in action is gun control. To bring about a government ban on certain weapons, repeatedly showcase all criminal use of guns until the problem appears to have reached crisis proportions.

Suppress all incidences in which the private ownership of guns prevented or stopped crimes. Eventually, the public will accept the premise that “guns are the cause of crime,” and soon, the population will be disarmed by popular demand.

Does it work? What do you think?

What if even one of the professors in the Virginia Tech massacre had possessed a gun? Instead, the VT massacre provides an object lesson in what can happen when we let the Federal Thought Police do our thinking for us.